The Un-Woke Mind Virus

 

Consider if you will, unwoke Ron De Santis--the bland Florida man at war with Disney and Dylan Mulvaney. (Do I need to tap the scoreboard on old Ron?) making his pitch to the American people and the world he's ready to fight for them because...he's mad at Disney and mad at Bud Light, and mad transgender people exist and also still mad about CRT which has never been taught at K-12 and probably mad that Gitmo prisoners both threw up on him and remember his face. He's cautioning against the "woke mind virus."

Who knows if he actually gives a fuck about any of that--the bandwagon exists and the man has feet. I didn't know who Dylan was myself until the Bud Light kerfuffle and now want to protect her like she was my own daughter. If someone thinks it's okay to demonize someone just trying to live their life and be enthused by stuff, surprise--you are the weirdo. Hating someone for their gender expression makes you the hater. That's how it works. Supporting Dylan, or supporting so-called "wokeness" isn't a virus, it's basic decency. I share a planet with other people and we need to coexist. It costs me exactly nothing to respect someone else's pronouns, and it actually enriches me to know that human experience is diverse. 

Just the other evening, Elon Musk sat down with Bill Maher and they talked about the "woke mind virus."

How is this real life? How are two grown adult men having a real conversation about the biggest threat to humanity being the "woke mind virus"?

Elon Musk starts rambling about how there's more to George Washington than slave ownership and Bill Maher goes "POC did slavery too" pic.twitter.com/GWDwX8IYJU

— The Serfs (@theserfstv) April 29, 2023

I've been relentlessly online for years and I still don't know what the "woke mind virus" is. I've been part of the atheist/agnostic/progressive/pro-LGBT thing since my teens--and I guess I was woke early? Because there is nothing that people are calling "woke" that is brand-spanking new to me. They sound like old men bemoaning whatever is wrong with kids today--not like people who have identified a real problem, other than their own mortality. 

But I do know what the "un-woke mind virus" is, because I see it everywhere. It's when people just call anything that makes them uncomfortable "woke"--and what makes them uncomfortable is rather a lot. It's when people of color are cast in tv shows and people call that "woke", It's when women are heroines in fiction or in fact, and that depiction is called "woke". It's when queer people exist anywhere and instead of that being seen as reality--because queer people exist--the complaint is just "woke, woke, woke". 

If you can't enjoy coffee or beer or M&M's or watching movies or tv or doing anything but horking Ben Shapiro or Steven Crowder or Matt Walsh into your brain--maybe you're suffering from the Un-Woke Mind Virus. You have been lulled asleep and are experiencing nightmares about shit that isn't even happening. Like the social contagion of being queer or trans, the supposed surgeries to tweens, the teaching of CRT and the implicit pro-sexness of reproductive anatomy education.

Un-Wokeness--AKA ignorance, is the real problem out here. It's bigotry, it's small-mindedness. It's Moms for Liberty astroturf harpies descending on school boards and eating the liver out of them. It is not realizing this is actually Orwellian, because Orwell has been banned for them for ages. It is not realizing that their desire to find witches creates new witches in their mirrors. 

The un-woke mind virus is when supposed feminists stand with actual swastika -carrying Nazis to protest gay people wearing dresses. It exists when people are ready to deny any human being the right to cop a squat over indoor plumbing, which all of us have to do at some time or other. When people lie about effective medical treatments for others because seeing them happy frightens them. It's when a state legislature banishes a colleague because who she is too real and disturbs their priors. It's when another state legislature banishes Black colleagues for trying to speak out about gun violence.

And here's the funky thing--go back five, six seven years--and many of these folks never would have been so extra and out of their way about drag shows, weren't interested in banning books, wouldn't have even known what CRT was, let alone think it was being taught in kindergarten to make kids hate America--wouldn't have been so obviously bigoted about their fellow elected officials. That part is new. It's like something suddenly infected their way of thinking about things. Something made them think it was just fine to be small and bigoted.

It's like wokeness is mere tolerance. and anti--wokeness is a mind poison that makes you hate everything. Even your own kids:

A TERF on the Montana house floor admits that she'd rather watch her kid k*** themselves than provide gender-affirming care

These are the people who say they're "protecting children" pic.twitter.com/svIUwt3vGo

— Themperor Kennedy🐸🏳️‍🌈 (@kennedytcooper) April 26, 2023

I know very easily which side I respect. I know very well which side looks actively dangerous to me.